The Perfect Coffee Price Storm?

As we talked about last week, Coffee Rust continues to ravage the Central American coffee crop.

To make matters worse, Brazil is experiencing an ongoing drought. Combined, they are exacerbating the coffee market. As a result, as Joseph Stromberg reports, we will all be paying a lot more for our coffee very soon.

It’s taken a while for this to be reflected in the retail price of coffee, because roasters generally have a few months’ stock of beans on hand. But we’re finally beginning to see slight increases in retail prices of coffee too.

Those two crises are bad enough, but what can we expect in the future?

El Niño is Coming

No, not the Christ Child. The other El Niño: the band of warm ocean water temperatures that periodically develops off the Pacific coast of South America and that is linked to prolonged, extensive droughts in Central America. El Niño is also expected to prolong the current droughts in Malaysia and Indonesia.

What can you do?

What we you do to mitigate the looming price crunch? Not a lot. We could cut back on our coffee consumption, but we all know that isn’t going to happen. Instead, we’ll probably just have to dig deeper and get to know our coffee sources a little better. The temptation for roasters and purveyors to cut the expensive, preferred arabica beans with the more hearty, less tasty Robusta beans will be high. If you are paying top-dollar for your coffee, you’ll want to make sure you are getting what you pay for. Know your roaster, or if you can’t, at least know your barista, and hope he or she won’t lead you astray.